How to fix the Freeza arc

[Kyo]

Quit hatin on Boo guys that ain't cool, we're all for equal opportunity here.

<div class='spoiler_toggle'>Spoiler: click to toggle</div><div class="spoiler" style="display:none;">https://www.youtube.com/v/OFQQALduhzA&autoplay=1&start=341&end=349</div>
uhm *ahem*

I'll just start off and say the pacing. Specifically, the repetition caused by the pacing. During the Freeza fight in particular - which was quite long already, mind you - Toriyama kept on building tension the same way. "This isn't even my final form..." Prior to that, the whole...lollygagging around thing would've served well to create tension if it didn't take up so much time as well, in my opinion.

Give me your thoughts, brethren.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

More humour. Seemed quite serious.

 

[Yoshi]

Have Freeza stay dead on Namek.

Other than that, absolutely nothing. The Freeza Arc was written by Toriyama at his best. Dragon Ball was never intended to be a deep story anyway.

 

[Southern Gothic]

Have Freeza stay dead on Namek.

Other than that, absolutely nothing. The Freeza Arc was written by Toriyama at his best. Dragon Ball was never intended to be a deep story anyway.

I mostly agree with Yoshi here, although I didn't mind Cyborg Freeza.

Everything in the Freeza arc that seems like a trope now was far more fresh the first time around. The process got repeated a lot after Namek, at least how I saw things.

The escelation was unique and really built to a hopelessness. Vegeta was awesome, and was doing things that involved cunning and creativity, not just acting like a jock.

And Goku arriving against the Ginyu's was about the coolest he's ever been.

It's definitely my favorite arc. Not perfect. But I wouldn't make any major changes like some other areas might deserve.

 

[Yoshi]

Well the reason I don't like Mecha Freeza was because of how much he got shafted just to show how much stronger Trunks and the Cyborgs were.

 

[FutureProtagonist]

Freeza's transformation are Boo arc-esque, and obviously just Tori flying by the seat of his pants in terms of long term planning, but they were gotten out of the way pretty quickly. Can't say the same for Boo.

Maybe extend the first form Freeza battle a little bit, make the fight between his second (final) form initially like Goku vs (2.5%) Freeza, have Gohan and Piccolo do their thing, then have him power up, kill Vegeta, and take it from there.

The method for generating them was awkward, but the character and story beats were mostly fine during that fight, just needs a bit of streamlining.

 

[Classic Adamas]

- Scrap the Ginyu Force.
- Scrap Vegeta's alliance with the Z-fighters.
- Scrap the stupe power ups.
- Space Freeza's Transformations out more.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

Freeza was placed at worlds beyond everybody, so that he'd look fearsome. Then, everybody gets magically
stronger so that they can all be useful against Freeza, which defeats the purpose of placing Freeza that high
in the first place. I'd either nerf Freeza or make everybody but Goku useless in that battle.

 

[Papasmurf]

- Give weaker characters a bit more room to change the tide of the battle (though this is a problem with DB as a whole)

- Better explanations for Vegeta and Goku's absurdly haxed zenkais, or at least make the transition between 40-90,000 powers to powers in the millions less abrupt

- More dramatic character deaths

- Freeza dying on Namek, as well as the Genki Dama's damage not being shrugged off so quickly

- More focus on Vegeta's resolve to surpass Goku when he arrives on Namek and beats the Ginyu Force

- Freeza's forces succumbing to PIS a bit less, as Vegeta and the others get the better of them a bit too often

I'd say that's about all.